What Should We Do Instead of the ML Rule 5?

 As a follow-up to my last post talking about whether the ML R5 draft should be discontinued, here are my suggestions on what should be done instead of having a ML R5

• Continue the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft. Teams would still be able to protect up to 78 players in their organization from this draft (40 man ML roster and 38 spots on their AAA reserve list).  I think this draft is necessary as it does give 2nd and 3rd tier prospects the chance to move to another organization to continue their minor league development in a normal manner AND it limits stockpiling and gives teams a chance to right size their 165 man organizational roster.  Also, although infrequent, major league players HAVE come out of minor league R5 draft.

• I would swap dates for the roster freeze date and the non-tender date.  It continues to make no sense to my why you would set your roster THEN remove more players from that roster. I think this is less of a problem if there is no ML R5 draft as teams will not have to waste spots on their 40 man roster on players who likely will not help them that year or, in some cases, for a few years. Still, setting your roster, whether it is 40 man or 78, should be done AFTER you know which players the team would non-tender and if any non-tendered players would be added to a roster before it was frozen.

• With the elimination of the ML R5 draft, in main way left to eliminate prospects hoarding would be the minor league free agency rule.  Right now, a player not on a 40 man roster can choose to become a free agent after 6 full seasons in the minors.  What I propose is to modify that rule to take into account that we have so many 16 year old players brought into ML organizations every year. Those players can become 6 year minor league free agents as early as 22 years olds when they are still in the steep part of their development curve.  At the same time, college seniors can come in as 22-, 23- or even, in rare cases, 24-year olds after having high level coaching for years and years before they even turned pro.  In order to give teams a fair chance to develop their prospects and give older prospects a chance to change organizations before they get too old, I suggest changing the limits on when a player could become a minor league free agent as follows:
• Players signed when they are 16- or 17-year olds can become minor league free agents after SEVEN FULL SEASONS in the minors (up from the current 6 years)
• Players signed as 18- or 19-year olds could reach minor league free agency after SIX FULL SEASONS
• Players signed as 20- or 21-year olds could become minor league free agents after FIVE FULL SEAONS
• Players signed as 22-year olds or older could become minor league free agents after FOUR FULL SEASONS

I think these changes/continuations will give players more freedom to change teams before they get to their late 20s AND give teams a fair chance to develop their very young prospects before potentially having to choose between losing them to minor league free agency or placing them on the 40 man roster before they are ready to play in the majors. 

I have heard feedback that elimination of the ML R5 needs to come with other, related, changes so this is my proposal for those related changes.